Foreign and Commonwealth Office

European Union: Treaties

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: To ask Her Majesty’s Government which EU countries are required by their constitutions to hold a referendum before their governments can agree changes to the EU treaties; and which countries have done so in the past.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: No EU country has an absolute constitutional requirement to hold a referendum before their government can agree to any amendment to the EU Treaties. Indeed, no EU Member State held a referendum on the most recent change to the EU Treaties which came into effect in 2013.The following countries have a constitutional requirement to hold a referendum in certain circumstances (e.g. if proposed changes require a revision of a Member State’s constitution or constitute a transfer of competence/sovereignty to the EU):• Austria • Croatia • Denmark • Ireland • Lithuania • Romania • SlovakiaThe following countries have previously held a referendum on changes to the EU Treaties:• Denmark • Ireland • France • Italy • Luxembourg • Netherlands • Spain

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Pregnancy: Discrimination

Baroness Burt of Solihull: To ask Her Majesty’s Government why publication of the research by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission into pregnancy discrimination has been delayed, and when the final report can be expected.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The final reports into Pregnancy and Maternity-related Discrimination and Disadvantage in the Workplace were published on 22 March 2016, together with the Government response to recommendations made by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.We had intended to publish the final reports in December 2015, but this did not prove possible as the extensive research reports took longer than expected to finalise.

Consumer Goods

Baroness Byford: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there is a legal obligation for goods offered for sale in shops in the UK to carry contents and usage instructions in English.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: Labelling and information requirements vary by product.If information on a UK product label is a mandatory requirement, this information must be provided in English.For non-food consumer products, the UK General Product Safety Regulations 2005, which implements the European General Product Safety Directive, require that a product is safe when placed on the market. In this context, it is considered safe to have the instructions and safety information in the language of the Member State where the product is being sold.

New Businesses: Females

Lord Taylor of Warwick: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support female start-up company founders in the light of the study by MIT, Harvard and Wharton Universities in 2014 showing that males are 60 per cent more likely to get funding.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The UK is a great place to start a business, with an increase of 760,000 businesses between 2010 and 2014. There are more women-led businesses in the UK than ever before - around 1 million (20%) of all Small and Medium sized Enterprises. But we know more needs to be done to ensure we create the right environment for women to start and grow their own businesses.Women can benefit from the full range of wider business support available from government. This includes Start-Up Loans which provides funding and intensive support to new entrepreneurs (38% of Start-Up Loans have been awarded to women); and the New Enterprise Allowance which provides a business mentor and access to financial support for Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants who want to start their own business (37% of NEA loans have been awarded to women).We have developed a specific web page on the Business is Great website for potential and existing female entrepreneurs to find out what help is available to them (http://www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/women-in-enterprise/). We are also currently undertaking research to increase our understanding of the best way to reach female entrepreneurs.

Ministry of Justice

Prisoners

Lord Ahmed: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current total number of prisoners in HM Prison Service; and how that number is broken down by faith category.

Lord Faulks: Religion is self-declared and prisoners are under no obligation to declare their religion. Statistics on the prison population by religion in England and Wales are published quarterly and the latest available information can be found within table 1.5 of the ‘Offender Management Statistics Quarterly, Prison Population 31 December 2015’. The latest information is provided below. Table 1: Prison population by religion, as at 31 December 2015, England and Wales  Total  Males and females84,968  All Christian42,063  Anglican15,835  Free Church848  Roman Catholic15,197  Other Christian(1)10,183  Muslim12,328  Hindu438  Sikh705  Buddhist1,543  Jewish398  Other religious group(1)1,383  Non recognised11  No religion26,007  Not recorded92  (1) On 30 June 2015, 350 prisoners who were previously recorded in the other religious group will now be included in the other Christian category. More detailed information on religion in prison population data and improvement of classifications has allowed the identification of these prisoners.  Data Source and Quality   These figures have been drawn from IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

*No heading*

Lord Beith: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that cases in the Court of Protection involving personal liberty are not delayed by lack of representation for persons with mental disabilities, following the recent ruling of that Court requiring representation in such cases.

Lord Faulks: The Court of Protection deals with some of the most vulnerable people in our society and is responsible for making difficult decisions including where a person must be deprived of their liberty for the purpose of care or treatment. The protection of vulnerable people is a priority for the Government and we remain committed to finding a fair and proportionate resolution. We are considering whether changes need to be made to the way these cases are dealt with in the courts following the recent ruling on this topic.

Ministry of Defence

Reserve Forces: Languages

Lord Harrison: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those in the reserves of the armed forces have opportunities to use and develop linguistic skills.

Earl Howe: The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises the valuable skill sets of our reservists, all of whom have full access to the MOD's language schemes. We work to ensure that those reservists who already have a second language are able to use and develop that language. Any reservists employed in roles with direct requirements for language capability receive the same training as regular personnel.The MOD maintains a pool of linguists through the Education and Training Services (Reserves), which provides additional language capability to exercises, operations and Defence Engagement tasks. A new training programme, which makes use of courses and bespoke training provided by the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture, has recently been introduced to develop the skills of linguists in the reserves.

Department for Work and Pensions

*No heading*

Lord Jones of Cheltenham: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for those countries and territories in which those in receipt of the UK state pension are subject to the frozen pensions regulations, what is the process necessary to negotiate reciprocal agreements for pensions to be uprated annually.

Baroness Altmann: There are a number of considerations around whether to initiate the negotiation of reciprocal agreements for pensions and other social security benefits. These include reciprocity between the social security systems in the respective countries, the movement of people between the two countries, and the affordability of concluding and administering an agreement.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Food: Waste

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage supermarkets to redistribute surplus food to charities rather than disposing of surplus via anaerobic digestion or landfill.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble: If surplus food cannot be prevented, the next best option is to ensure that it is redistributed for human consumption. Working through the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and our voluntary agreements with the grocery sector, we have taken action to ensure that more surplus food is redistributed to people before being put to any other use. All major retailers now have arrangements in place to redistribute surplus food. Signatories to phase 3 of the Courtauld Commitment have reported a 74% increase in food redistribution between 2012 and the end of 2014, and we expect this to increase further. Last year, the Secretary of State held a meeting with industry and redistribution organisations to take stock of progress on food redistribution. Outcomes from this include the recent publication of a Redistribution Framework to help facilitate closer working between potential donors and recipients of food surpluses. WRAP has commissioned research to identify where and why waste and surpluses occur in the supply chain to inform further action to increase waste prevention and redistribution. Following the success of earlier agreements, WRAP launched the Courtauld Commitment 2025 in March this year. This is an ambitious new agreement that takes a whole food supply chain approach, and will build on the progress we have already made to prevent waste, including through the redistribution of surplus food. There will always be some unavoidable food waste. The Government’s Anaerobic Digestion Strategy is in place to reduce the amount of organic material going to landfill and drive the waste that is produced into energy recovery or recycling.

HM Treasury

Capital Gains Tax

Lord Myners: To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the budget made concessions available on capital gains to non-domiciled residents of the UK that are not available to standard UK tax payers.

Lord O'Neill of Gatley: The Summer Budget reforms to the domicile tax regime are the most significant since the rules were introduced. They are forecast to raise £1.2 billion this Parliament. The transitional provisions announced at Budget 2016 are necessary for a reform of this scale as they help to ensure that non-doms remain here and continue to pay UK tax on their income and gains within the new domicile tax regime. In April 2017, over 3,000 non-doms will still become subject to UK taxation on their worldwide income and gains.

Financial Markets

Lord Myners: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether central clearing houses in financial markets are required to prepare living wills; and what measures have been put in place to manage a capital failure.

Lord Myners: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of any increase to the economic risk supervised by the Prudential Regulatory Authority of the proposed merger of the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse; whether obligations of the combined group will fall to the UK taxpayer; and whether there have been any discussions about risk sharing with the government of Germany.

Lord O'Neill of Gatley: UK legislation requires central counterparties (CCPs) to develop recovery plans and to have ‘loss allocation’ rules, in order to allocate any losses sustained by the CCP either following the default of a clearing member or due to certain non-default events, so that the CCP can continue to provide its critical functions. The Government has also broadened the scope of the UK’s Special Resolution Regime to cover CCPs. When certain conditions are met, this allows the Bank of England to intervene by transferring all or some of the business of a CCP to either a private sector purchaser or to a bridge CCP owned by the Bank of England, or to transfer ownership of the CCP to any person. Qualifying changes of control of CCPs are assessed by the Bank of England and I refer the noble Lord to my written answer HL7153 of 1 April 2016.

Employee Ownership

Lord Harrison: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to meet with the representative bodies of employee share ownership schemes to discuss the recent decision to withdraw HM Revenue and Custom’s valuation check service.

Lord O'Neill of Gatley: Officials from HM Revenue and Customs have already met representative bodies of employee ownership schemes. HMRC will be working with those groups to develop further public guidance and discuss any other proposals their members might raise.